240 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
in advance of his coining. It is so in nearly all selling. 
The peddler is the only exception I can think of. Life is 
too short, we are all too busy, we haven’t the time nor 
has the traveling representative the time for an educa¬ 
tional interview. The house must prepare the way for 
the man on the road by first making his possible custom¬ 
ers acquainted with the house and with the goods it 
sells. Advertising sells goods; travelers gather up the 
orders. 
The non-advertising nurseryman who depends on 
agents to get business is operating at an extraordinary 
and unnecessary expense. He figures generally that the 
retail selling’ price must be five times the wholesale or 
m l 
cost price. That is, to make a fair profit, it is necessary 
to charge an advance of 500% over cost. Experience 
seems to show that to be necessary. But why is it neces¬ 
sary? Isn't it a fact that those who buy through agents 
are one-time buyers? 1 would say that 80% are. Ask any 
farmer where he bought his trees and the chances are 
that nine times out of ten he will say “In Winchester” 
or “in Rochester” or “from Pennsylvania;” but it is rare¬ 
ly the case that he will remember the name of the firm. 
That is because the firm has not taken the trouble to re¬ 
mind him; he does not find its advertisement in his 
paper; he receives no catalogue; he is a customer lost: 
an asset gone to waste. The customers of the advertis¬ 
ing nurserymen include a much larger percentage of 
regular buyers. They receive constant reminders in 
the way oi letters and catalogues and on the printed 
page. Now, isn’t it an unusual selling expense if 80% 
of your customers are only one-time buyers? Each one 
of those orders must yield its own profit. But many 
successful merchants say that most first orders cost 
them as much as they get from the sale. The advantage 
is in establishing a contact that can be followed up: first 
buyers made into permanent customers; the house, its 
name, its reputation, its goods and its service must be 
kept constantly before the public and especially before 
its customers. Agency firms have the same opportunity 
and their figures on selling expense would seem to indi¬ 
cate the same need for constant publicity to keep in 
touch with their trade. To lose 80% of each year’s buy¬ 
ers is a tremendous loss in potential profits: loss of con¬ 
tact established at great expense. Salesmen should 
have the support of the house they represent and the very 
best support they can have with the public is intelligent 
advertising in the territory they cover. If you don’t be¬ 
lieve it, ask your agents. I know the answer because I 
have been an agent myself. 
All of us have noticed that during the last two years 
I here has been very little nursery advertising. Space has 
been small or not used at all. Catalogues have been 
fewer and not so good in quality. There was a marked 
cutting down iu advertising and printing investment. I 
have asked why ? And it seems that the shortage of stock 
and (lie reaction following the war made it unnecessary 
to try to get business. The orders came without effort 
for even more than could he supplied. But some very 
successful merchants in other lines carried their usual 
advertising during the war years and when they could 
not fill a fraction of the orders t hey received. And 
right now they are doing business where others com¬ 
plain there are no orders. They figured that there is 
something besides immediate orders to work for: and 
that is the future orders; they advertised to keep in con¬ 
tact with the buying public and to conserve the good¬ 
will represented in their business. In our line, feast 
and famine follow each other with great regularity. Be¬ 
ginning in the spring, we shall probably have more stock 
to sell than for some years back. We shall feel the 
necessity to make the selling effort that has been un¬ 
necessary lately. The farmers, on whom we depend 
rather largely for buyers, are not in good shape and not 
likely to be in better shape for another year or so. Also, 
shortage of stock and comparatively high prices have 
encouraged large plantings by nurserymen, by used-to- 
be nurserymen, by never-will-be nurserymen and by 
farmers and orchardists. The latter seem to think they 
can grow trees cheaper than they can buy them while 
the farmers, many of them, compare the prices for farm 
products with the prices for trees and so they buy grafts 
and plant them. I do not mean to suggest even that 
there is a surplus of stock in sight or that we are likely 
to have any serious overproduction. What I mean is that 
our market has to be worked; our field has to be inten¬ 
sively cultivated. The market is there; it will buy 
things; it is buying things; we must see to it that it buys 
what we have to sell. I mean we mustn’t trust too much 
in Providence and F. W. Woolworth & Go. 
This country is not likely to see any necessary surplus 
of good stock for years to come, if at all. We shouldn’t 
think of surplus except as a spur to selling effort. We 
have a great, broad, undeveloped land with 20,000,000 
homes and more needed. High rents and city costs are 
driving families into the suburbs and into the country. 
Our people are by inclination and because of ability, 
home-owners. That means tree-buyers. Ours is the 
richest country in the world; if it were not, we couldn’t 
pay $5,000,000,000 in Federal taxes in a peace year. We 
have over half the world’s supply of gold in our vaults. 
Our bank deposits are the largest in our history. Every 
home-owner is a customer. A man can wear only one 
hat at a time but every garden has a place for another 
plant. There are the great estates, the parks, the ceme¬ 
teries, the highways, all needing the things we grow. 
And that market throughout the whole country is open 
to every nurseryman no matter where located. Ours is 
not a local industry; few things are so widely distribut¬ 
ed; Texas peaches are planted in Michigan; Maryland 
apples go to Missouri; Illinois evergreens thrive in Mas¬ 
sachusetts parks. Outside of a few nurserymen whose 
goods and distribution are limited by climatic extremes, 
this great market is open to all. The average nursery 
is limited in its possible expansion and growth by just 
two things and by nothing else: its capacity to produce 
and its ability to sell. A territory so vast can be covered 
only by printed matter, advertising copy and catalogues. 
Traveling salesmen can reach only a few. Each can well 
supplement the other; they go naturally together. 
An industry so absolutely the opposite of local can 
profit and does profit through advertising. No business 
that I know of needs advertising like the nursery busi¬ 
ness needs it; no business that I know of so readily re¬ 
sponds to intelligent advertising. I don’t mean to imply, 
now, that buying advertising space and distributing 
printed matter is going to make you or anybody else 
